Your Friendly Neighborhood Music Critic

Kamaiyah – A Good Night in the Ghetto

“I wanted to make a soundtrack for the average 18-25 year old thriving, living and having a good time,” Kamaiyah told The Fader. “A Good Night in the Ghetto is a fun time with no drama and no one being hurt. That’s what I want to promote. l want to promote living but also make it known that it’s OK to have problems. It’s not what you go through it’s how you get through it. This is the soundtrack of how to get through it.” 21 year-old Oakland native, Kamaiyah hit the scene real hard as an upcoming female rapper with sites like MTVcalling her “Oakland’s Best New Rapper” or Stereogumdeclaring that she “Just Fucked the Whole Summer Up” with the release of her debut album, A Good Night in the Ghetto.

Standing at a fork in the road between “is this bad?” and “is this so dumb it’s good?”, I now firmly believe it’s hit that sweet spot between novelty and seriousness. To me, A Good Night in the Ghetto is about having fun, just as Kamaiyah designed it to be. There’s nothing noteworthy in terms of depth or lyricism when it comes to the record, it’s just some well crafted rap-pop full of nostalgic 80’s g-funk influences in all the right ways. Fellow rapper YG shows up, which makes sense stylistically, and a boastful 16 tracks of hype-ready material.

Other than the skits, of which I’m going to flip a table if I hear a phone call skit on another rap record, the only other odd bit is the inconsistent vocal doubling. Chalking it up as more novelty to love, Kamaiyah is really the first artist I think I’ve enjoyed strictly for the fun of it. Usually depth and lyricism are really important to me, but there’s something about this record that just makes me want to play it over and over again. It’s fun. There’s nothing really troubling Kamaiyah, it’s just A Good Night in the Ghetto, and I like the simplicity of it all.